Integrated Food Security Phase Classification:
According to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, more than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths.
- It is an independent body funded by Western countries and widely recognised as the main global system for measuring the severity of hunger crises.
- It was set up to sound the alarm so that famine and mass starvation could be prevented and to help organisations respond.
- The IPC is overseen by 19 major humanitarian organisations and regional bodies. It typically partners with national governments to analyse data.
- It is an innovative multi-stakeholder global initiative aimed at enhancing food security and nutrition analysis to inform decisions.
- The IPC system charts acute food insecurity on a five-phase scale. Its most extreme warning is Phase 5, which has two levels, catastrophe and famine.
- If the IPC or one of its partners finds that at least one area is in famine, a famine review committee, led by up to six experts, is activated.
- For an area to be classified as in famine, at least 20% of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
- The IPC says it does not formally declare famine, but provides analysis for governments and others to do so.
- The IPC relies on the N. World Food Programme and other relief organisations and government agencies to provide data.
- The protocols used by the IPC are harmonized across the three individual scales (IPC Acute Food Insecurity, IPC Chronic Food Insecurity, and IPC Acute Malnutrition).
